Saturday, July 25, 2009

No baseball team can win every single game it plays, and it's even harder when the line-up the manager posts can best be described as the "C" line-up--but don't blame the Yankees for trying.

In a game in which the Yankees did not get their first hit until the fifth inning (and a bunt single, at that), they still found a way to bring the winning run to the plate with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Had Jorge Posada merely struck out, instead of grounding into the double play, the Yankees might still be playing in extra innings right now.

Since we can't alter the past, however, it's no use playing the what-if game. Here is what is:

Andy Pettitte was phenomenal in the first six innings, and whether we like it or not, earned himself the ability to try to get out of the seventh inning. Alas, he could not, and so Joe Girardi called on the next-most-prudent thing to do in bringing in Alfredo Aceves.

Aceves has been so good for the Yankees for so much of this season, that one might forgive a Yankee fan his or her shock when faced with Aceves', well, clunker this afternoon. Pettitte will be tagged for the loss, but Aceves' total inability to get that final out is really what cost the team the game.

Much will be made of the offense's inability to do anything against Oakland's starter Gio Gonzalez, but, as always, it all comes back to the pitching. Had the Yankees found some way to get out of that seventh inning, that 1-0 lead holds for just that much longer...

At day's end, however, the Yankees are still in first. One loss can change everything, but it shouldn't.